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Maureen Mullarkey: Studio Matters

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“Dear Bishop: Shut Up & Pray”

Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of Brooklyn since 2003, gave the commencement address to this year’s graduating class of St. John’s University. Below is a letter written in response to that address by the father of one of the graduates. It reflects the tenor of Bp. DiMarzio’s speech quite clearly. Equally evident is the justice of one father’s anger at the contradiction between the purpose of the event and the bishop’s self-admiring seizure of it to promote a specific political agenda. The first obligation of any commencement speaker is to honor the occasion. Continue Reading

Fragments On A Theme

The seventieth anniversary issue (November, 2015) of Commentary was dedicated to a symposium on “The Jewish Future.” Seventy Jewish writers and scholars responded to John Podhoretz’ request to answer the question: What will be the condition of the Jewish community fifty years from now? The tenor of responses range from the exhilarating to the unsettling. All are  compelling. One of the few women respondents is of interest here. Bethany Mandel described herself as “a writer on politics and culture and a stay-at-home mother.” Continue Reading

Use & Abuse of Language

It is a short walk between linguistic priggery and the verbal bows and scrapes expected of us in talking about the great and the good. That thought nagged at me some months back at a symposium on “Freedom of Religion in the Age of Pope Francis.” To kick-start discussion, panelists were asked to say two things about Francis. Each was allotted a single yea and a single nay. A double yea might have been okay but, please, no double nays. Not even a stand-alone one. Continue Reading

Language Most Foul

Vulgarity, too, is in the eye of the beholder. Oscar Wilde acknowledged as much when he remarked: “Vulgar behavior is the behavior of other people.” Wilde’s admonition is worth keeping in mind—a mortification-in-waiting. As we have been told, God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. But while we keep an obliging eye out for our own vulgarities, it would be a shame to overlook everyone else’s. So stay with me a bit. •   •   •   •  When the temperature hits 90° I am ready to curse the heat myself. Continue Reading

Musical Life of English Catholics

If you are in or near Manhattan this coming Friday, May 27, you might take pleasure in this lovely program at St. Vincent Ferrer on Lexington Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets. Samuel Schmitt’s lecture, accompanied with live musical examples by early music specialists Charles Weaver, and Grant and Priscilla Herreid, promises to be wonderful.This is a rare opportunity to engage the riches of English Catholic musical and religious culture under the Tudors. The evening will bring to life the musical life of recusant Catholics—those who defied the Recusancy Laws by refusing to worship in the Anglican Church—in the time of Elizabeth. Continue Reading
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